A
female
age
41-50,
*una06
writes:I recently was left by my boyfriend for a long-distance ex who came back into the picture three years after breaking up with him. We were together six months. This is a long one, but to get the best feedback I want to portray as much of the situation and background as possible. So, here goes…I am 24 and graduated from college a year and a half ago. I had been single for nearly three years at that point, after being badly hurt in my first relationship. After some serious soul searching and introspection, I was beginning to toy with the idea of a new relationship, but wasn’t necessarily looking for anything. Within seven months, I had met and started dating “Nick.” He was my age and worked at the same company and in the same profession. We do not share buildings though so I do not see him at work. Initially, I kept my guard up emotionally. I told him the relationship would never be serious because I was thinking of leaving the area to return to school. He said he was fine with that. I played this card whenever I started feeling uncomfortable and wanted to pull back from him. Nick and I talked about this problem at length. I had also been spending time discovering my bad patterns and fixing them. At the beginning of relationships I can get “cold feet” and feel engulfed very easily, and if I pass this stage, I tend to assume I will be with the person forever and get totally attached, which is how I get hurt in the end.Nick was very understanding and we talked very openly. He told me about his older brother who had been killed in a car crash when Nick was 17 and the ineffective ways he had dealt with the loss. (None of our friends know about his older brother). I learned about his ex girlfriend “Sarah” in college, who he had dated for nearly two years. She had broken up with him several months before she left for graduate school, coincidentally in the same state in which Nick and I would soon take jobs a year and a half later. They spent some time getting used to being just friends so that they would not have to experience the break up and Sarah’s relocation all at once. Nick was very devastated and did not have another girlfriend again until me. This was unique common ground, as we had each been dumped by people who meant everything to us. Sarah went on to date other people, some of whom were less responsible and more the “rough type,” if you know what I mean. I believe she even dated someone else prior to relocating for school. Through the next three years, they remained pals and mutual confidantes. Nick refers to her as his best friend.When Nick moved to the same state as Sarah to start work, they traveled to visit one another, but no relationship re-materialized, save for one session of “messing around” because “they were both horny.” Sarah finished grad school and took a job on the east coast. (Nick and I live in the Midwest). The company Nick and I work for is the same type of company as Sarah’s (in fact, a close competitor of my company) and she could have easily obtained equally prestigious employment at Nick’s company if she had intentions of returning to him. Doing the math, all this was about the time that I first met Nick, and about three months before we started to date.After a few months of dating, things between Nick and I began to change for the better. The relationship had taken root and started to grow. We were getting along great, we were honest about everything with each other, we had learned of and accepted each others’ mistakes, etc. I started being able to see myself with this guy long term because he was such a wonderful person at heart. On top of that, he shared my profession, my religion, sense of humor, values, what more could I ask for? We both agreed (for me, with difficulty at first because of my fear of engulfment) that the relationship had the potential to become “serious” and he mentioned moving toward commitment.Around this time I started to get uncomfortable about his contact with Sarah. She was constantly calling him from her new state. When she started dating a new guy, she constantly called Nick about their problems or to learn Nick’s opinion. My discomfort stemmed from the fact that my parents are going through a divorce due to my father’s cultivation of a friendship with another woman, which ultimately led to a long and drawn out affair. We got in a lot of arguments because Nick insisted he should have the right to keep Sarah as his best friend. He also discussed certain aspects of our relationship with her that I felt were innapproriate to share with an ex. I told him that I was being essentially robbed from developing the same kind of friendship and emotional rapport with him, but he disagreed. My argument was that cultivating that friendship to that degree was dangerous and increased the risk of feelings redeveloping between them and me getting hurt. He absolutely refused to compromise and insisted he had moved on and that they “do not work as a couple.” One night, when I was feeling particularly insecure after she called, I said, “I don’t know how much more of this contact I can take. I won’t take it.” He became very sad, teared up, hugged me and said, “I really like you.” His reaction convinced me that he was being truthful, and from then on I decided to drop the issue. We remained together.During this time, Nick returned to his college state to visit friends and saw Sarah, as they share friends. He made a second week-long trip to visit a handful of friends again, with Sarah on his list of visits. During his visits he called me daily to talk and says he misses me. Out of pure coincidence, I happened to be on a business trip in the same area one week while he was visiting. I excitedly suggested I go with him to meet his friends, at least for dinner on one of the nights. The initial reaction I got was as if he had said, “You’ve got to be kidding me, what are the F*cking odds of this happening.” He seemed uncomfortable taking a new girlfriend to visit his friends from college and that this would overstate the degree to which the relationship had progressed. He expressed concern over things being “weird” between Sarah and I, because he had told her the way I felt about their communication. He said Sarah was worried about losing him as a friend as a result of me. I was very hurt by his attitude and did not see why he had such a problem with me joining him, Sarah, and her boyfriend for dinner. Later on he sincerely apologized and felt very bad for the way he reacted. He invited me out to dinner with his friends, but I turned down the offer, partly because of a schedule conflict and partly because deep down, I felt unwelcome.Despite this incident, things continued to go great between us. I began asking him if he would consider long distance if I went back to school. One day when I was feeling rather insecure about potentially getting my hopes up too high, I told him I had decided that I was not going to waste my time in a go-nowhere relationship and I needed his answer right then and there. He acted like I was pressuring him into commitment, and from his point of view, I was. But I needed him to tell me whether long distance was a flat-out “no” or if he might consider it for the right person. He also asked point blank if I loved him. I was caught off guard, as we had not said those words before. I got defensive and said that was an unreasonable thing to demand an answer for after only a few months, or something along those lines. He then made the point that my question to him was equally misplaced after only this much time together. Nick had said in the past that he “didn’t do long distance,” but that we would see where our relationship was at when the time got closer to the point of me actually leaving for school. At that point, we would evaluate whether or not to pursue the relationship long-distance.Now comes the shocker…A week and a half later, I decided not to go home for Easter to avoid the divorce situation, and he invited me to spend it with him and his family in his home state. I said I would go but made sure to play reluctant (again, insecurity issues). After arriving, as I was brushing my teeth, I overheard him in the living room talking on the phone. I heard him mention that he was at home and that I was with him. That detail apparently set the other person off, as Nick immediately and defensively tried to calm her by saying I essentially had nowhere to go for Easter. After he said her name, I went a bit numb. After he hung up, I approached him and asked him why she was so upset and that I had overheard their conversation. He asked me to sit down and said that two weeks earlier (he was on a business trip at the time), Sarah’s boyfriend had dumped her. Things had not been going well and Sarah had been wondering if she should even be with the guy. She had called Nick afterwards, very emotional, and confessed the following: She had been redeveloping feelings for him the last few times he had visited their college state. She had always found herself, after his visits, comparing her boyfriend to Nick as a “standard,” and she now had feelings for Nick again. She was essentially hysterical when she found out I was at his parent’s house and was so mad that she deleted his number from her phone (I later learned this from him). I asked why he had not told me sooner and he said he had felt terrible about it, but he did not want to tell me over the phone when he was out of town, and that he did not want to tell me during Easter at his parents - He would have told me after Easter. To this day, I believe him because I have observed nothing but moral integrity in this guy from day one, in all aspects.I asked Nick to tell me if he still had feelings for her and not to lie. He took a deep breath and said that he thought he had moved on, but that this recent string of contact had re-awakened his feelings for her - feelings he claimed he did not even realize he had anymore. He said she was being extremely emotional and that he wasn’t sure her feelings were authentic. Out of my shock and disbelief, I said that in that case, perhaps the right thing to do was to break up immediately. He was upset and said that if he had wanted to end things, he would have done so during our last argument about the long distance potential. But he did not end it, because he saw our relationship “going somewhere.” His exact words were, “If I didn’t think this was going somewhere, I would have ended it then.”The next afternoon when his parents weren’t around, we talked some more. I told him I had done some thinking and that I did not want to break up, but that he would have to make a decision based on his feelings and that I would trust him to do the right thing. I gave him about two weeks to think. I told him I was not going to sit around and wait for him to make up his mind like my mother had let my father do. I was either with him all the way, or not at all. The rest of the weekend went well. His family loved me, I got to meet some of his friends, and Nick and I spent a lot of quality time together.On Sunday, the long drive home was rather awkward. I slept or read most of the time, and he was very quiet. We didn’t really talk at all. When we got back, I helped him unload his car and we sat on the couch to talk. He said that he had used the drive to think through the situation. He said he did not know how to rid himself of the feelings he had for Sarah and essentially that it wasn’t right for him to be with me because of that fact. He had decided that we should “just be friends,” but that it “still hurt.” I told him I wasn’t trying to rub things in, but that I had been right about his constant contact with his ex and its consequences. He agreed I had been right. This was very emotional for him. He cried, and hugged me. I did not hug back, but I teared up. I was very uncomfortable and did not want to show my emotion, so I took it very casually and left immediately. He wanted me not to leave right away, but I wanted the hell out of there. A week went by without either of us calling. (I told him that withdrawal facilitated moving on.) He then called me to invite me to a get together at his place that he’d had planned for awhile even though I already knew about it. After, I’d had too much to drink and he wanted to talk, so after everyone left I stayed. I don’t remember what all was said, but I had decided that I had sold myself short in the breakup and didn’t really make much of an effort to stop it, which may have caused him to think I was indifferent. So in my emotional state, I confessed to him that he had meant “as much to me as grad school” and that it took this breakup for his meaning to me to really sink in. I told him I would do anything to have him back, but not under these circumstances (the ex situation). I told him if I ever did love someone, the guy would have at least everything Nick had. I even asked him if he had loved me, and he said that things could have been moving in that direction, but that no, he did not love me. I was sobbing. I asked him if he was getting back with Sarah now and he said that he was “going to try,” but felt unsure about his situation because of the distance factor. We both cried and hugged for a very long time. He asked me not to drive so upset and to stay the night on his couch. However, I was so upset that after he went to sleep in his room, I snuck out and drove home.I saw him periodically with friends over the next three weeks. I was constantly preoccupied with his status with Sarah, but I did not contact him. Three weeks after the breakup, I was going nuts and decided that I really needed closure and to be 100% certain that distancing myself and moving on were my best option. I asked him to talk after I saw him at a group event. I asked him if he and Sarah were back together at that point, and he said that they "kind of" were, and that they in fact would be seeing each other that weekend at an event at their college, with their mutual group of college friends. He also gave me some additional detailed confessions about Sarah that he had not shared in the beginning. He said that even after they had broken up, he "knew" that she just wasn't ready to settle down, and that she needed to go date other people and go to grad school and live the life she needed to at the time, which she did. He said that when they were together, and even after they had broken up, he thought that through it all somehow they would “work through all the problems,” they would end up together, and she was "the one." When nothing of that nature materialized between them even after Nick moved to her state for his job, I assume that was the point where he may have started to accept the fact that they were over, because he finally started to date again after she left. He also said that when he began telling friends that they were in the process of reuniting (friends I have never met and who have never met me), their comments were, "Well, you always did seem happiest when you were on the phone with her." He told me that Sarah’s mother had thought that dumping Nick was foolish and wondered why Sarah dated the kind of guys she went on to date, rather than getting back together with Nick. So I asked point blank if the chances were “essentially zero” of things working out with us. He said, "Pretty much, unless things don't work out with her, but then you wouldn't be interested anyway because you would feel second choiced." I was very upset at this point, so I agreed with him and said that I would not be able to be “second choiced” and that I could never be with someone who had done this to me. He said I deserved better and I agreed with him. He said repeatedly during the conversation that he felt like "the bad guy" and that he never thought he would dump someone for another girl, and he felt guilty for getting involved with me. (Why? I thought the feelings for Sarah didn’t emerge until she came crying back to him!) I got up from the bench we were sitting on and said I had heard enough (firmly, not angrily). He tried to stop me, but I said, "You have already given me the answer I needed in order to close this door. I had six months with you, and I am here. She is a million miles away. And that still wasn’t enough." He asked if things would still be ok seeing each other with friends, and I said they would be fine. (We do share many mutual friends.) Then I walked away.I spent the weekend letting the situation sink in. What had happened finally hit me, and it knocked the wind out of me. I felt like he had the upper hand and I didn’t like it one bit. On Monday, I sent him an email requesting that he not contact me “until I have established a real relationship in which I am not treated as a void-filler and a backup.” On Thursday, I bagged up all the gifts I had ever received from him, drove to his apartment, and hung the bag around the door knob. Since then I have completely avoided him. No phone calls, no email, no instant messenger. In fact I blocked him on instant messenger because seeing his screen name was driving me nuts.That was a month ago. I saw him at the company softball game last week and requested our friends to ask him to keep his distance. This didn’t keep him from finding an excuse to add in his two cents when he overheard me say something. Pathetically, I found his ex’s MySpace page and she still has her profile set to “Single,” two months after Nick and I broke up. Based on this and on what I hear from our friends, they’re still in the “kind of” back together state they were in a month ago. I don’t get it. If they were going to get back together, wouldn’t they have already done so??I am in between feeling hurt and wanting him back, but so much would have to happen. What I am so confused about is, at Easter he said that if he had wanted to break up with me, he would have done so when she first confessed her feelings to him if he had not thought that him and I were “going somewhere.” Now, he has done almost a total 180. I have gotten some clarity on this point, because he was apparently waiting to see if she was just reaching out to him in emotion and desperation in the wake of her break up. Now he seems to be convinced that her feelings are authentic, based on the fact that she told him her feelings have been reemerging over some months, not just all of a sudden. This whole thing to Nick is now a validation that hanging on for three years were the right thing to do. I thus predict that, having closed the door on me, he is going to put his entire being into resurrecting things with her, who left him in the first place. The only thing that keeps me feeling better right now is to convince myself that he is not doing the right thing, that things will not work between them, that he will realize his mistake and go through the necessary grief and withdrawal process to abandon his old hopes and expectations with her, and that as a result of it all he will be naturally drawn back to me because of how open and honest and respectable we were about everything. The fact is, if they are truly going to work out, one of them will be forced to commit to a relocation. The last I heard from him, neither of them was ready to do that. They will also have to work through whatever problems existed with the relationship before.Anyway, after all that (if you’re still reading),What should I do? - Move on, try to be friends again, stay in the “no contact” state?What about Nick and Sarah? What do you think of their relationship? Will it last?Wouldn’t they have gotten officially back together after two months have passed now?Why did Sarah return to Nick after three years, when she could have had him back when they were in the same state? Did she truly just not realize what Nick meant to her until now? Or is she just looking for a quick fix? This whole thing is eating away at my thoughts and draining my energy.Thanks Luna06
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
male
reader, Danielepew  +, writes (16 May 2008):
 Luna06,
I did read your post in its entirety. I was thinking about making long comments about it, but that would take too much time, and maybe I wouldn't really follow the thread of my thoughts. But here are my answers to your questions:
You should move on, and, hard as it may be, stay in the "no contact" state. Nick is a very stupid man and being near him does you nothing but harm.
About Nick and Sarah: if what we're seeing now should give us any insights, they will never move beyond the "kind of" situation. She isn't really into him. He is her "nice guy", and that's it. If she really wanted to be with him, she'd be with him already.
Why Sarah returned to Nick: SHE HASN'T. They are "kind of" back, aren' they?
Nick is very stupid, I insist. And I insist. Sarah dumped him, used him, and he let her have her way. He had something going on with you, something very good, by the looks of it, but he let it go down the drain because of someone who had chosen to dump him. Yep, this is what smart men do. She can play all of his strings, and he is happy if she does. Now the man wants you back because he is "kind of" NOT getting what he expected to get. But if you took him back (stupid as he is, I insist) he would go back to her if she did as little as waving her hand at him. You don't need that heartbreak. You need someone for whom you will be number one, not "second choice".
Don't get in touch with him again, but, first of all, understand that this is what's convenient for you. If you find it convenient to leave the area, do; but don't do it just for him. Do it for YOU.
I'm sure Dumb and Dumber are laughing their asses out loud now that they know about this guy. Phew!
A
female
reader, Tisha-1 +, writes (16 May 2008):
 Luna, I was so hoping that your story would have a happy ending, and I did hang on and read till the very end. So let me answer the questions you posed at the end.
"What should I do? - Move on, try to be friends again, stay in the “no contact” state?"
I would do what makes you feel the best about this. In my mind, moving on and staying in the 'no contact zone' are the same things, and I would distance myself from him as much as you can, unless you're willing to be the friend he goes to when he's having problems with Sarah. Um, for me, that would be unacceptable, and I'd want to move on. I would put myself first at this point, and think about what is best for my mental health. Sorry if this sounds selfish, but you're going through the phases of a break up and you need to think about what is in your best interests. Be cold and clinical about it, you are obviously very well-educated and are working through this in a very orderly way. But don't try to minimize your emotions with logical conclusions, because it really doesn't work that way.
Emotions are irrational and visceral and real. They may be acknowledged and dealt with by logic but they cannot be denied. So allow this part of you to grieve and mourn the end of the relationship. You are perfectly within your rights to have these feelings and do not minimize them, embrace them, experience the anger and rage you have.
"What about Nick and Sarah? What do you think of their relationship? Will it last?"
I have no idea if their relationship will last, it may survive the long-distance thing, it may not, but it really isn't good for you to worry about this. I think you're asking the question because you don't want their relationship to last, and that he'll get punished in a way.
It doesn't matter whether they survive as a couple or not, this has nothing to do with you, stupid as that sounds, this is between them. That's the logical part of me speaking, the emotional part of me wants them to get together for a little while, then explode into a fiery relationship mess and realize that they are no good for each other. That's because I think I understand what you want to happen between them.
"Wouldn’t they have gotten officially back together after two months have passed now?"
God, who knows, they clearly have some bond that keeps them together, but it may not be the healthiest thing for either of them. And then, who cares?
"Why did Sarah return to Nick after three years, when she could have had him back when they were in the same state? Did she truly just not realize what Nick meant to her until now? Or is she just looking for a quick fix?"
There is no way of knowing what is going on in Sarah's mind, and it's not worth one more moment of you worrying about it. He has made his choice and he can live with it.
I read this whole post wishing and hoping that such a bright and intelligent young woman would wind up with her Prince Charming. The thing is that he is a flawed human being, with previous emotional commitments that seem to be out of his control.
And you are a very smart and obviously caring woman who should have the best that life can offer. The bad news is that he's not the guy that's going to be the Prince Charming.
It totally sucks, to be blunt and crude about it. It does, it's not fair, but life goes on, it really does, there are some fabulous men out there who are looking for love and a real commitment who don't have a thing for an ex that will sabotage a relationship like Nick allowed to happen to yours.
"This whole thing is eating away at my thoughts and draining my energy."
You're in the middle of dealing with a break up, this is completely normal, not a happy thing, but it is normal.
The best thing for you actually is to come to a state of complete indifference as to what happens between them. In five years, when you're with a wonderful man who loves you and appreciates you and isn't messing around with some ex, you'll suddenly realize that you should be sad about Nick, but instead, you'll just feel nostalgia, and tiny bit of regret that he didn't see what a fantastic woman he was letting go.
All the best.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (16 May 2008): Answer no. 01:
honey, i hate to say this to you bcos u still have feelings for nick, but i think you should move on. and i suggest going cold turkey for a while. no calls, no emails, nothing. maybe until ur sure ur over him. it may take some time. it maybe hard cos u have mutual frends but u shud try to not even see him, cos if u still keep tabs on him, it will just drive u insane. i know its easier said than done but do you wana degrade urself to being 2nd choice ur entire life? come on, nobody does.
regardless of whether nick and sarah are getting back together or not, do u only wana be his back up? spare tyre? cos from the looks of it, that's what u are. wudnt it be better to cut ur losses and get out now (it was just 6 months anyway) rather than waste more time?
it seems to me that he loves sarah and if he says "she's the one" its quite clear isnt it? no amount of waiting, persuading, proving urself is ever gona change that. if ur not "the one", ur not. period. the best thing would be to get over it and date someone who thinks the world of you and will make you no. 1.
i have a frend in the same situation as you. the only problem is that she waited around 10 years for this guy and he kept telling her she's not "the one". she was 18 when ur situation happend to her. she's 28 now and hasnt gotten over him. she wud cry hysterically when she's drunk. calling this guy and professing undying love for him. he's moved on and got engaged to another girl who he knows is "the one". its kinda pathetic.
Answer no. 2:
i dont know if nick and sarah would last, but are u willing to wait around in the wings, hoping and praying that they break up just to pick him up? and be his security blanket until he's better again, just to 1) get back with sarah again? 2) find someone else that he says is "the one"? and leave you again?
Answer no 3:
i think they're both giving each other time to sort out their own feelings for now. maybe thats why they are sort of together but not. i wudnt keep my hopes up, cos it seems that they have their own issues that they need to work out. u shudnt need to get sucked into that. its not worth trying to figure something out and later find out that it doesnt concern you anyway.
Answer no 4:
Sarah was probably just trying to play the field for a while, checking out her options to find out whether nick is the rite one for her or not. its none of ur business anyway what she thinks or feels. it will just drive u crazy finding out why.
so for your own sake and sanity, let this one go. ur worth so much more honey. go before it kills u inside. all the best!
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